The Mothman Wants To Hunt Cryptids

 

            “They’re totally real!” The Mothman insisted.

            “Oh please,” Werewolf declared, sitting across the table, “That’s hardly the scientific approach to these things. It’s just a terrible story. It’s like mythologizing a car without gas. Yes, it runs, but what’s the point? It’s not interesting, just a lump of metal.”

            “And that’s why it’s all the more real,” he hissed, “The world isn’t always spectacular. I’m sure you’ve seen animals who’s entire purpose is wasted on them. Hell, you know there was a species of deer that went extinct because their antlers grew too big with each generation? Or that Koala’s are basically addicted to poison, and spend all of their energy eating digesting such leaves?”

            “That doesn’t prove anything— Oh, thank you,” The Werewolf gave her best smile to the Waitressing Dryad, “Humans are just Sasquatches with less hair.”

            “And a whole culture! I mean, can you imagine what an entire species would be like obsessed with light-based devices like phones?” The Mothman huffed and sat back, defiantly.

            “Just because you like to open your mind to the impossible doesn’t mean I really want to entertain the same shenanigans, Lixher.”

            “I know, but it’s just one night. We can take your flashless camera, and see if we can capture one in action. You’d have fun, Grenette.”

            “No one would get any value out of us doing this. We’d just be endangering ourselves and spooking the local wildlife.”

            A convertible rushed passed the window, giving it a light rattle. The Waitress glared out the window, her hand running gently across the fuzzy head of the mascot Jackalope, which thumped its foot in response.

            “Come on, Lixhers. I know this stuff fascinates you, but cameras are expensive, and I don’t exactly relish the idea of spending a day out in the forest among the bugs.”

            “It’ll be relaxing!”

            “For you, at least you have some ties to those freaks of nature. But for me it just means ticks and tangles.” She scratched at her bare neck, the last shavings from last night’s endeavors just now flaking off.

            “I’ll get you some bug spray.”

            “Aren’t you allergic to that stuff?”

            “Yeah, but I can just wear a mask.”

            She rested her chin in her hands, “This just seems like a whole lot of hassle for what would inevitably be nothing at all. Even in the old legends, none of them suggest that humans exist in our world, and they’re all through the Ancient Gate in the towns old legends. A myth within a myth. You’re not gonna find anything.”

            “Says you.”

            “Yeah, and the rest of the world.”

            He stuck his proboscis in his hot cocoa indignantly, as Grenette cut into her pancakes.

            “I’m sure we could find them.”

            “We wouldn’t even be able to verify if they’re real. The myth literally describes them as ‘Werewolves without phases, Mothmen without fuzz, Things without scales.’ They are absolutely able to just blend in with us like, ninety percent of the time. It’s a fool’s errand, all of it.”

 

X

 

            “So she’s not coming,” Lixers lamented.

            “Aww, that’s a shame. She sounds fun.” Willow the Scarecrow sighed, dissapointed.

            “At least I don’t have to watch you ineptly flirt all night,” he teased.

            “I am not inept! I am the Queen of Smooth.”

            “You’re more rough than the straw that animates you.”

            “Oof, gracious, toxiiiic.”

            He rolled his eyes, “Shut up, you know I’m right.”

            She giggled, and finished setting up the tri-pod. They stood around the clearing as the sun finally began to set, letting the hot day lighten up, which both the Scarecrow and the Mothman appreciated.

            “OW!” Mothman’s foot collided with Willow’s fire extinguisher, and he held it in pain, his wings dragging him away from the impact.

            “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave that there.”

            “Goodness, I know you need to be precautious, but did you really have to be red? Especially when you knew you’d be camping with me?”

            “I put green tape on it!”

            “It’s not green enough!”

            She paused, recognizing the mood, and waited a few moments. As he settled down, the gentle thrumming of his wings calmed and ceased.

            “Sorry.”

            “It’s fine, Lixher. I get it.”

            “How do you even put up with me?”

            “Come on, you know we’re friends.”

            “But like, really. I know you don’t believe this stuff. But it seems like a lot to do if you’re just humoring me.”

            Willow sighed, and stopped adjusting the camera.

            “You know, most people won’t take me camping.”

            “Why, do you snore?”

            “No. Shut up, dork.”

            “Sorry! Sorry,” he laughed, “But why not?”

            “Because I could burn.”

            “But we all could.”

            She chuckles, but there’s a hollow ring to it.

            “Yeah. We all could. But I guess they’re extra sensitive around people made of vegetation and kindling.”

            “I mean, people can just be extra cautious.”

            “I don’t think people want Jack-O-Freaks around to be cautious of.”

            “Willow, come on, don’t call yourself that.”

            “See, now you’re playing the rescuer to my problems. Consider your tables, turned!”

            He laughed and crouched down text to her, and helped fasten the camera to the ground. The silver of it shiner

            “Maybe we’re perfectly messed up for one another.”

            “One carved-heart pumpkin and one fuzzy conspiracy theorist.”

            “One stubborn fuzzy conspiracy theorist.”

            “Right, right, can’t forget that,” she smiled, her glowing smile illuminating their work in the gentle, buzzing darkness. “What lead you to invite me in the first place? I mean, we haven’t talked in months.”

            There was no response.

            “Lixher?” She turned to him.

            His eyes were fixed forward, past the camera, like camera lenses zoomed on. She turned to look, and saw something beyond unthinkable.

            Right in the middle of the previously empty clearing, glowing brightly in the moon-lit night, build out of stone and carved in with symbols from a language entirely foreign to them both, was a little stone gateway.

            The light was brilliant, a pale white mixed with pinks and light blues, streaming outward like godrays from a window. It was silent, and yet seemed loud and impossible to ignore. They both stood and walked their way over to it, cautiously, as the camera filmed the approach behind them.

            “What the hell is that…?” Willow could barely get her voice above a whisper.

            “I think it’s the Ancient Gate!”

            “You can’t be serious, but that’s just a myth!”

            “Does what’s before us look like a myth?”

            And right as he said that, something stepped through the gate.

            Something short, with a borough of twinge hair only on its head, a bare body covered in cloth, a sort of plastic toy in one hand, strange square glowing device in another.

            Something which began to scream.